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Rachel Reynolds may appear diminutive, but it takes only a few minutes with her to understand that her mind is broad and her heart is huge. Reynolds is a senior majoring in English and she has used her four years at Sweet Briar to the fullest.

Rachel ReynoldsThe daughter of parents who have both enjoyed successful careers in the Agricultural Foreign Service, Reynolds says that her experience of living her whole life in the same house in Bethesda, Md. gave her a strong sense of adventure and a desire for experiences abroad.

She made the most of Sweet Briar's commitment to study abroad by participating in the summer program at St. Anne's College at Oxford and also spending fall semester at St. Andrews University in Scotland in her junior year.

It was while she was at St. Andrews that she stumbled upon a copy of Thomas Hardy's "Jude the Obscure." She bought the book, walked to a nearby Starbuck's, settled in and began to read. In short order, she was fascinated and had determined the direction for her honor's thesis would be a study of Hardy and the influences of Nietzsche and Darwin.

Summer Honors research her junior year allowed Reynolds to research extensively and develop her thesis further. She explained that even though she feels "Jude" is a failed novel, it is still fascinating.

"As a writer, I wanted to explore why Hardy would abandon his art," Reynolds said in presenting her final thesis, "Escaping Fiction: Thomas Hardy's 'Arguments' in 'Tess of the D'Urbervilles' and 'Jude the Obscure,' " to a standing-room-only audience.

Her passion for writing also led Reynolds to be involved in the campus newspaper, where she wrote a column during her sophomore and junior years and served as editor-in-chief during her senior year.

One of her accomplishments with the paper, she said, was introducing a more political identity to the newspaper. She explained that "growing up in a family with a broad world view and among people who were aggressive when expressing their opinions made me appreciate my time at Sweet Briar. It really opened up very different views and ideas that I hadn't experienced before."

Another important part of Reynolds' experience at Sweet Briar has been her participation in Sweet Spirits, a community of students who serve as a student leadership team to promote spiritual values and plan campus spirituality programs.

Faith has always been important to Reynolds. She has worked as a teaching assistant for special needs children at Beth El Hebrew School in Bethesda and also as an inclusion counselor at the Jewish Community Center in Rockville, Md.

She also traveled to Israel the summer after her first year at Sweet Briar to participate in Birthright Israel and she counts it as a watershed experience. She shared her commitment to her faith on campus by leading a Friday Shabbat service and Torah study, which she said was very rewarding.

After graduation, Reynolds would like to eventually attend law school, with a preference for the University of Pennsylvania, and then pursue a career in the law. In the more immediate future, she hopes to be accepted to Tikun Olam in Tel Aviv.

Tikun Olam is a social service program that begins with two months of intensive Hebrew immersion on a kibbutz, and then moves to Tel Aviv where the participants run programs designed to alleviate poverty in the city for both Jewish/Israeli and Muslim/Palestinian residents.

Reynolds is passionate about her four years at Sweet Briar. As favorites, she lists going abroad, the friends she has made, and taking Professor Lee Piepho's "Twelve Plays" class. If she could do it all over again, she says she would take more classes with professors John Gregory Brown (creative writing) and Cathy Gutierrez (religion) and would become involved in the newspaper earlier.

"I was really challenged here because professors held me to a higher standard," Reynolds said. "I am really grateful for this. As graduation draws near I have wondered, if I were in a Kafka novel and could wake up five years earlier knowing all I know now, would I still have come to Sweet Briar? Without any question, if I had it all to do over again, I wouldn't go anywhere else!"